‘Must do better’ not enough, Campbell Reid tells Facebook

Facebook must drop its ‘we must do better’ mantra, News Corp’s corporate affairs chief Campbell Reid says.

News Corp group executive corporate affairs, policy and government, Campbell Reid. Picture: John Fotiadis

Facebook must drop its “we must do better” mantra, and start “actually doing better”, News Corp group executive corporate affairs, policy and government, Campbell Reid says.

His comments came ahead of the public release of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) report into the market power of digital platforms.

In an interview on Sky News, Mr Reid said the industry should not fear “doomsday” statements from digital platforms about the implications of great transparency around algorithms. He described Facebook’s willingness to co-operate with regulatory changes as “cute”.

“Facebook has developed a wonderful kind of playbook on this. It’s sort of part of the ‘oh we must do better mantra’ and ‘oh yes and we do need regulation’,” Mr Reid said.

Mr Reid said what Facebook was in fact doing was inviting regulation to be put forward so that it could make a show of reviewing it and then declaring it “unworkable” in the context of the way its business operated.

Campbell Reid on tech giants undermining traditional media: We want to see leadership from the ACCC & the govt. They unfairly dominate advertising markets, free ride off content created by us and monetise it without returning any revenue back.

MORE: https://t.co/1CF0eQKjJZ pic.twitter.com/JVBkDW82td

— Sky News Australia (@SkyNewsAust) July 5, 2019

“What Facebook should be starting to do is stop saying ‘we should be doing better’ and start actually doing better.”

The ACCC report, handed to Treasurer Josh Frydenberg last Sunday, has not been made public. Since the release of the preliminary report in December 2018, platforms including Facebook and Google have urged caution about regulation that would require them to be more transparent about how their algorithms work.

Facebook said it wasn’t opposed to regulatory changes, but wanted to be part of the consultation process.

Ahead of the report’s public release, Mr Reid re-iterated media companies had no desire to tell tech titans Google and Facebook how to operate.

But he said it was “entirely unfair” that rules of the platforms could change without media companies that are providing much of their content being able to know their “secret herbs and spices”.

Mr Reid suggested platforms pay media companies directly for content, or provide a better share of revenue generated from the content, as potential solutions.

“At the moment they unfairly dominate advertising markets,” he said.

“They free ride off content created by us and others and monetise it without returning any of that revenue fairly back to us. And they change the way those systems and their platforms work at their whim, with none of us able to understand them, or have any input into how those systems should work.”

In an interview on ABC Radio National on Friday, News Corp managing director of The Australian, NSW and Prestige Nicholas Gray raised similar concerns, pointing to digital platforms as a key factor in the billion dollar loss of print advertising revenue over the last five years.

Mr Gray said the platforms’ ability to take snippets of content and present them in search results and social feeds, did not allow for subscriptions or meaningful advertising.

He said while there were “fantastic” tools available on platforms for consumers, it would be “disingenuous” to pretend those same tools were good for journalism.

“One of the things we lobbied hard for is prominence. If an outlet breaks a story, whether it's The Australian or the ABC, that outlet that breaks the story should appear at the top of Google search results and in other forums on social media,” he said.

Earlier this week, Cabinet agreed to establish an inquiry which would look at the power of police and intelligence agencies, and their impact on free press, following calls from executives at News Corp, Nine and the ABC for an overhaul of laws affecting journalists’ work. Last week, the three media organisations united to call on the government for a review of Freedom of Information Laws, whistleblower protections, limitations on issuing warrants and defamation law reviews. The unity came after Australian Federal Police Raids were conducted on the ABC and News Corp journalist Annika Smethurst.

On Wednesday, media executives met with the Attorney-General Christian Porter to discuss their concerns, but said they remained “frustrated” after receiving no assurances from the government that journalists targeted in police raids wouldn’t be prosecuted.

Mr Gray and Mr Reid both said News Corp would cooperate with an inquiry, but reiterated it was “narrow” and didn’t address all concerns relating to press freedom.

Facebook and Google have been approached for comment.